A Detour ... to the Personal Democracy Forum

June is largely about petition signatures and matching funds...but a candidate's gotta keep plugging into policy too. Or why run?

A great socket turns out to be Andrew Rasiej's and Micah Sifrey's Personal Democracy Forum, a two day conference on the intersection of information technology and politics/government. Since they attracted hundreds folks at their first iteration several years ago but thousands at Jazz at Lincoln Center this week -- and since, well, Andrew and Micah are supporting my candidacy -- I go Tuesday to listen and learn and "network."

Amazing. I meet and link to Ellen Miller, head of the pioneering Sunlight Foundation... and Craig of Craigslist himself...and Beth Simone Noveck of NYC and also the #2 in Obama's White House "Open Government office." And many others, all brimming with actual ideas and platforms to link citizens to their government.

It's all under the rubric of "WE.GOV" and exploits social networking and open-source technology to have citizens in real-time let government know what they'r e thinking and adjust proposals without having to send documents to the Federal Register. Great to have what's called "Wiki Government"...except on those days when 9/11 conspiracy theorists and folks demanding (again) that Obama disclose his birth certificate, which are acceptable prices to pay for more open and smart government.

Since one of the major themes of my candidacy (and term if I succeed) -- is that "NYC is IT", as in information technology -- my policy director Benjamin Kallos and I soak up ideas like George Hamilton does the sun (or at least the tanning machine). Ideas like Universal Internet, Open Data, Open 311, and Transportation 2.0 -- which I'll be expanding on and applying to our often Opaque NYC government in coming years.

I was proud to have initiated 311 and NYC.gov in my last term as PA and am excited to take it to another level of transparency ad accountablity in the next.

(PS While I very much wanted to hear Mayor Bloomberg's proposals ideas here, which he was scheduled to deliver on Monday at 10:30am, I instead had to go to City Hall to join good government groups and the other candidates for PA to protest his punitive and disgraceful 40% gut of the PA office (http://www.markgreen.com/content/good-goernment-groups-join-green-criticizing-bloomberg-quinn-budget-gut). As we're speaking at 10:30, he's seen leaving City Hall behind us, captured on film by Azi Paybarah of The New York Observer (http://www.politickerny.com/4267/public-advocate-candidates-protest-cuts-bloomberg-doesnt-notice).

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